Curse

Clusmas · Mar 30, 2006, 11:55 PM // 23:55

http://www.gwshack.us/3cc95

A pretty standard sort of surge build.

I'm interested because many people argue this sort of build is terrible.

Me, I've always liked surge builds, even though I haven't run one for quite some time.

Discuss.

Kate Bloodspirit · Mar 31, 2006, 12:37 AM // 00:37

I wouldn't call this a standard build. It's highly evolved in a lot of ways to counter the current metagame.

The 3 monks backline offer an insane amount of instantaneous healing, which is great vs necro spike and in general, vs any sort of spike so to speak. Note the chain aegis, reversal spam and a dedicated signet booner with prot spirit provide a very nice amount of ranged stacked damage mitigation.

Hex stacking should be a problem, given the presence of 2 purge conditions, which turn out to be a great source of hex/conditon removal while you still keep 2 whole monks available while casting this non-so-easy-interruptable skill. Note that the amount of energy lost at ANY given time of the match is negligible dued to minus energy weapon sets and 3 pips on regen only in the case of the booner.

Note the booners have a great mana curve of 5 energy average spells and the healer is basically a dedicated infusing machine.

E/Mo runner: Offers a ton of spammable snaring skills (while casted on the right order) which can be used to force a morale boost or simply to protect your backline when combined with blurred vision, which is fairly recyclable. And also works well at spiking, altought there're better options in this regard. And obviously, heal party spam ftw.

Now let's analize the offence. It seems like the people from iQ are the only ones who didn't understimate the Gale nerf. It's still a great skill to have and offers a lot of utility. The sword warrior and the axer provide a lot of mobility to the build (charge) while providing efficient galelocks and spiking capability (Evis+Execs+final thrust), as well as self-healing.

Lastly, speaking of the surge mesmers, don't understimate the greatness of this combo. Serpent quickness and blackout offer a very long time of spammable shutdown with little downtime (about 2 seconds) which is great vs 2 monk backlines. Specially with 1 offtarget mesmer with Mind Wrach + Edenial + shatter enchantment. Shatter enchants are key in this world of of booners. A hard rez is always usefull in GvG and There's a fair amount of energy denial in this build. And well, always powerfull always mean Power Leak is a great tool for killing someone's energy (specially vs Caster spikers, Rspike mes/nec nec/mo's included).

From many points of view, this is a superb build. I'd argue anytime.

wheel · Mar 31, 2006, 01:54 AM // 01:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kate Bloodspirit

I wouldn't call this a standard build. It's highly evolved in a lot of ways to counter the current metagame.

Lastly, speaking of the surge mesmers, don't understimate the greatness of this combo. Serpent quickness and blackout offer a very long time of spammable shutdown with little downtime (about 2 seconds) which is great vs 2 monk backlines. Specially with 1 offtarget mesmer with Mind Wrach + Edenial + shatter enchantment. Shatter enchants are key in this world of of booners. A hard rez is always usefull in GvG and There's a fair amount of energy denial in this build. And well, always powerfull always mean Power Leak is a great tool for killing someone's energy (specially vs Caster spikers, Rspike mes/nec nec/mo's included).

From many points of view, this is a superb build. I'd argue anytime.

Uhh, this build is pretty much the metagame. It's pretty much either this or some form of spike. 2 surge/burn doms, 2 wars, 1-2 utility/flagger, 2-3 monks. It's been this way for quite some time. It doesn't counter the current metagame, really. For the most part, builds like this are hte metagame.

icemonkey · Mar 31, 2006, 02:04 AM // 02:04

why is this called 'Surge build'? This looks a lot more like standard GvG 2 warrior adrenaline spike.

Vindexus · Mar 31, 2006, 03:13 AM // 03:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by icemonkey

why is this called 'Surge build'? This looks a lot more like standard GvG 2 warrior adrenaline spike.

Because almost every build is a 2 warrior adrenaline spike so that description doesn't really narrow it down at all. But when you say Surgeway, people think off two Surge/Burn mesmers and two warriors.

nightrunner · Mar 31, 2006, 03:32 AM // 03:32

No cover stance on warrior #2... and not really liking #2 in general.

I would drop Ice Spikes from the ele for Remove Hex.

icemonkey · Mar 31, 2006, 03:32 AM // 03:32

i see just as many two e darain mesmer builds as 2 warrior builds

SaintGreg · Mar 31, 2006, 04:22 AM // 04:22

I think the purge signet is interesting, I partially dislike signet of devotion already because of the long cast, a 3 second cast signet is even tougher to pull off. Which is why iQ can do it and not me

Quote:

The 3 monks backline offer an insane amount of instantaneous healing, which is great vs necro spike and in general, vs any sort of spike so to speak.

I think vs. any spike the best way to beat them is to get in there face, disrupt spikes through KD, EDrain, interrupts, etc. 3 monks hurts you against spike because you have one less character capable of doing this. The extra offense not only helps you to interrupt spikes but you can pressure them and drop them better. If two monks can prot spirit and RoF during a spike, there isn't much extra a third monk can do since you've already saved him, except as another pair of eyes.

Kate Bloodspirit · Mar 31, 2006, 05:06 AM // 05:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by wheel

Uhh, this build is pretty much the metagame. It's pretty much either this or some form of spike. 2 surge/burn doms, 2 wars, 1-2 utility/flagger, 2-3 monks. It's been this way for quite some time. It doesn't counter the current metagame, really. For the most part, builds like this are hte metagame.

Hmm I guess you could take that aproach, what I had understanding of is that all of the 8 characters are designed to be utility characters. No real theme in this build.

rii · Mar 31, 2006, 02:53 PM // 14:53

There arent themes in a lot of builds nowadays. People are seemingly coming to the conclusion that
a) warriors hitting things is amazing - deep wounds and charge are great
b) energy denial is amazing
c) snare is amazing
d) boonprots are still really good
e) ether prodigy spammers are good

so get a bit of a), b), mix c) with e) and get some d) and thats 8 people right there. Thats what you get 9/10 times... although there are deviations with techincalities like serpents quickness

Vindexus · Mar 31, 2006, 06:22 PM // 18:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by rii

There arent themes in a lot of builds nowadays. People are seemingly coming to the conclusion that
a) warriors hitting things is amazing - deep wounds and charge are great
b) energy denial is amazing
c) snare is amazing
d) boonprots are still really good
e) ether prodigy spammers are good

so get a bit of a), b), mix c) with e) and get some d) and thats 8 people right there. Thats what you get 9/10 times... although there are deviations with techincalities like serpents quickness

Pretty much. People have found the characters that are good each guild just runs different ratios of them. Every now and then you see something a little different in a build, like a trapper or a serpents quickness dom mesmer, but for teh most part it's warrior, Flashbots, dom mesmers and boon prots.

Quote:

Originally Posted by icemonkey

i see just as many two e darain mesmer builds as 2 warrior builds

If this is true you need to stop watching shitty guilds play with shitty builds.

Byron · Mar 31, 2006, 06:36 PM // 18:36

To summarize the thoughts of Ensign of [iQ]:

There are really only three types of characters in the game: Warriors, monks, and mesmers. Warriors = damage, Monks = heals, Mesmers = denial.

The other types, such as ele or necro, are either support of these types or defenses against these types. I wish I could find the exact quote, but I can't recall what thread it was on. Can someone help me out?

Divineshadows · Mar 31, 2006, 06:42 PM // 18:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vindexus

Pretty much. People have found the characters that are good each guild just runs different ratios of them. Every now and then you see something a little different in a build, like a trapper or a serpents quickness dom mesmer, but for teh most part it's warrior, Flashbots, dom mesmers and boon prots.

If this is true you need to stop watching shitty guilds play with shitty builds.

I suspect icemonkey meant a 2 dom surge build and not e-drain as their elite. The player who plays the sword warrior must be very good at knowing when and when not to activate frenzy. There are a few things that confuse me regarding this build. First, there are very few hexes. It is my understanding that hexes get better the more of them your run (to a point). Am I wrong here? Substituting the water ele for an air ele does not work though since the build loses its snaring power. Still, mind wrack is an extremely annoying hex, because inevitably it gets triggered before it can be inspired. Second thing that confuses me is the use of 3 monks as it seems like a 2 monk build would stand up better against caster spikes and rainbow spikes. What are the main motivations for wanting to go with 3 monks? The only thing I see the 3 monk setup buying is to allow the dom mesmers to carry more offensive skills and less utility skills (i.e. no condition or hex removal on their bars). Also, having all the enchantment removal on the memsers seems like a plus too, because this avoids the conflicting drain enchants that inevitably occur between monks and mesmers (no matter how good your communication is).

wheel · Mar 31, 2006, 06:59 PM // 18:59

The reason why you can run a build like that with such few hexers is because of the fact that the hexes are meant to be short lived in their effectiveness for the most part in being snares (for the most part). The second reason why is because of the two energy denial mesmers who are going to make it hard for the monks to heal, let alone remove hex snares/Mind Wrack.

Plus, there aren't a lot of hexes in the current metagame, so hex removal isn't going to be all that much on most teams. In this example, iQ only brings inspired & 2 purge signets.

twicky_kid · Apr 01, 2006, 02:45 AM // 02:45

I think this shows their player skills. Main thing that stuck out ot me is 3 res sig. Most have 4 with 1 hard res.

I think its more about playing together and tweaking the builds to each others liking. I don't think most teams in GW could run this well.

rii · Apr 01, 2006, 09:18 AM // 09:18

Whats slightly annoying is this build has more or less stagnated the metagame. Most of the high up guilds play this.. or similar. A lot of lower guillds do as well. Notable exceptions are Rus corp and others... but then again not *everyone* really abused gale properly. Before the GWWC gale, cripshot, OOB monks, and HOD helm was the metagame since most of those things were abusable to a degree.

Currently, the build above or slight deviations is the best build in the game (it could be argued against... but its close to) and there are no shocking imbas within it. Warriors are great since they have high armour, their basic attack rate deals good pressure, and then their attack skills are fairly good to cap off. Not to mention the almightly ias... but none of that seems likely to be nerfed.

Water eles are also unlikely to be nerfed - the only thing that might get commented on is the 10s unconditional snare of deep freeze... but for 25e I think thats justified.

Surge Mesmers are good.... but not that imba. I once proposed a change to make surge/burn a 30s recharge,... lowering the average drain to 1pip... but even then its still great since the entire concept of energy denial is also great. Again - things could be nerfed but its unlikely to make a difference in that energy denial itself is good.

If EP gets nerfed I will cry.
The only way this build is going to get knocked off is probably if they buff a large amount of skills, making other strategies viable. However, even if they did... at a high level this will probably still be better than they will. Its a bit strange to see one build dominate everything else when theres not really anything wrong with it... and its coming up to the point where natural counters should have emerged/are emerging.

Numa Pompilius · Apr 01, 2006, 09:46 AM // 09:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by rii

The only way this build is going to get knocked off is probably if they buff a large amount of skills, making other strategies viable. However, even if they did... at a high level this will probably still be better than they will.

I'm thinking two new classes and a truckload of new skills might stir up the pot a little.

rii · Apr 01, 2006, 11:37 AM // 11:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Numa Pompilius

I'm thinking two new classes and a truckload of new skills might stir up the pot a little.

I'm thinking that the assasin will make little impact. At first glance its volatile with no justified return and there is no 'unique' aspect. Teleporting looks a little overblown... condition based damage... a few good defensive skills and a fair few bad ones. It seems to me this is going to become a 'noobstomping' class... little more. I fully hope myself to be wrong of course.

The Ritualist will make an impact.. but i wonder how much impact Rts will make when they get surged. Some really great protection skills, some alright damage skills, and some utility healing skills. Im sure they will make an impact but its hard to discern exactly where due to the range of their abilities. At the moment the strongest skills appear to be spirits like union, preservation, shelter, etc. But until someone proves to me (which isnt backed up by experience in the BWE) that spirits as a concept are total crap that aspect seems deflated.. and again related to a defensive form of 'noobstomping'

This build will probably still be the best one to run under the new classes.. as mentioned i hope im wrong but i dont think i am.

Edit: As for the new skills most of them are copies of old ones... as for the actual new ones a lot have serious problems or offer no real 'newness'. There will be shake up... but warrior damage, snare, energy denial and boonprots are fairly fundamental character formats. So no.

Thom · Apr 02, 2006, 10:35 AM // 10:35

1) The current meta-game is incredibly sophisticated, but it boils down to simple abuse of the best skills available balanced with a response to those skills. Energy surge being an excellent example: great skill, multiple threat strategy, even more sophisticated response.

2)Mayhem will exist for a bit before things work themselves out. It took several months and 3-4 major rebalancings to get to this point. People will start running minor variations of current builds until someone figures out how to dominated with a new concept build.

rii · Apr 02, 2006, 12:07 PM // 12:07

The metagame is very sophisticated i agree. If you had given a surge build to someone at release they probably would have scratched their heads with a big club and asked for a w/e kdas PLS. Nevertheless.... a stagnant sophisticated metagame isnt a whole lot better than a metagame stagnant due to anything else.

As for point 2... thats not really good news. The last several months have been defined purely by (almost always by) imbalances, not a whole lot of simple player skill. Most of the major builds/FOTMs were imbalances:
Smite, air spike, iway, ranger spike, gale, cripshot, and so on. As for the next release.... lets assume it takes three months to get to the point where its balanced again. An expansion is being released every 6 months isnt it? Im sorry, but by the sounds of things its entirely possible we are simply going to move from imbalance to imbalance with little downtime where anyone can run any build and the skill of the player will decide who wins.

On a more short term basis... is it just accepted that the next couple of months are going to be easy/stupid wins since noone actually knows what the hell is going on?

Im going to stop now since this is picking at straws not yet released.